Veterans Have Borne Trump Administration’s Deep Cuts to Federal Personnel

The Trump Administration has radically slashed the federal civilian workforce, sidestepping Congress and causing disruptions, slowdowns, and fragility in a range of critical public services that people and communities depend on. Veterans have been affected by these cuts both as members of the federal workforce and as recipients of federal health care and other benefits available to them based on their service.

The federal government has been a large employer of veterans for many decades, with veterans accounting for roughly 30 percent of all federal employees in recent years. Between September 2024 and December 2025, the number of veterans working in the federal government fell by nearly 10 percent. This loss of roughly 62,000 veterans from federal service — including 13,000 fewer veterans serving at the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) — has resulted in the lowest number of federal employees who are veterans in over 15 years, according to historical Office of Personnel Management data no longer available online.

Veterans have felt the impact of the Administration’s chaotic and sweeping personnel policies across the federal government, including at the IRS, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), and Department of Education.

But it’s at the VA — the federal agency dedicated to running programs and services that benefit veterans and their families, including providing care through nearly 1,400 health care facilities — where the harm to veterans may be most acute. The Trump Administration cut nearly 28,000 VA employees (about 6 percent of agency staff) between January and December of 2025. Included in these losses were over 2,700 nurses, over 1,000 medical officers, and more than 1,000 psychologists and social workers, as well as over 1,800 people tasked with evaluating veterans’ claims for benefits. As a result, VA health centers and offices in every state have seen staffing declines (see map).

Not only did the VA experience its largest one-year decline in staffing in the agency’s history (and largest decline in percentage terms in almost 30 years), it also suffered a loss in experience and expertise that will have lasting consequences for years to come. Employees separating from the VA in 2025 had an average of nearly 11 years of experience, representing a total loss of over 577,000 years of collective federal experience, 180,000 more than any year in the past two decades. At the same time, the VA hired the fewest number of new employees since 2005.

In November, Congress took a first step to discourage additional staffing losses at the VA. In its 2026 funding bill for the VA, it directed the Administration to “maintain staffing levels to facilitate the Department’s own [performance] goals,” including specific metrics of timely appointments and benefit processing. Of course, it is not clear whether the Administration will follow the letter or spirit of this provision. And, harm from these cuts to the VA, such as delayed enrollment in clinical trials for advanced cancers, increased backlogs for services due to staffing shortages, and cuts to research studies, will continue to be felt unless the VA changes course to meet the needs of veterans.

Many federal agencies have fared even worse than the VA. Ten Cabinet agencies suffered double-digit percentage declines in staffing from January to December of last year as part of the largest one-year reduction in the federal civilian workforce (excluding post-census years) since the demobilization that followed World War II. Cuts of this magnitude will have significant consequences for the agencies’ ability to carry out their missions.

Congress needs to continue to crack down on the Administration’s abuse and weaponization of personnel policy and address its unilateral cuts in federal capacity. Otherwise, the delivery of services and programs that Congress chooses to fund will continue to deteriorate, and everyone, including veterans, will continue to feel the worsening impact.